Home Is Where the Heart Is
by emmer23
Summary: Post 7x07 with spoilers for 7x10.  While in Malawi, Arizona meets a patient who become a big part of why she returns to Seattle.  Companion to "The Four-Date Plan".


**Title**: Home Is Where the Heart Is (1/1)

**Pairing:** Callie/Arizona, but very Arizona heavy

**Disclaimer:** Any characters or plotlines you recognize are not mine. I know very little about medicine, so I apologize if anything seems off. Though I probably know more about Malawi than I do medicine, not surprisingly, I do not speak Chichewa, so again, I apologize for any mistakes.

**Summary:** Post 7x07 with spoilers for 7x10. While in Malawi, Arizona meets a patient who become a big part of why she returns to Seattle. This is a companion piece to the fourth chapter of my other fic "The Four-Date Plan," but reading that isn't necessary to understand this fic.

**A/N:** This is my take on Arizona's experience in Malawi. I love sub-Saharan Africa and all of the many cultures and attitudes there. I've found in my own experience, that some of the poorest, most helpless people in Africa are some of the happiest I have ever met, so I wanted to bring in that aspect to Arizona's story. I hope you guys enjoy this story! I would love feedback, especially as this quite a different story from what I would normally write.

**o0o0o**

Arizona pressed the pad of her right hand against the swollen skin beneath both of her swollen eyes, willing her tears to subside. She breathed deeply and counted to ten, a method she had always used when she knew her personal life was getting in the way of her professional one.

Pushing the door open, she grinned, her dimples creating cheerful craters in her rosy cheeks. To an outsider, Arizona was as happy as one could be. Anyone who knew her well, however, would have noticed that behind the crystal blue orbs, there was no joy, only sadness.

Behind the door was an older boy, probably about 17, though no one knew for sure, and another Malawian doctor, who would serve as a translator. Glancing over his case file quickly, Arizona learned that the boy had never known his father, his mother had passed away the year before having contracted malaria, and the boy himself was in need of a new kidney. She sucked in a ragged breath before presenting a brave face.

"Moni!" she said cheerfully, grateful she had had the time to study her Chichewa phrase book. She knew she'd have translators and that some of the children would be able to speak a bit of English, but she wanted to be able to communicate one-on-one with the children as much as possible.

"Moni," the boy replied, with a wide smile. Arizona took a moment to take in his features. His grin spread all the way to his gaunt cheek bones, revealing a set of glistening white teeth and cherry red gums. His deep brown eyes gleamed with hope and love.

"Muli bwanji?" she asked cautiously, her eyebrows knitted with concern. _How are you?_ She expected his answer to be something along the lines of "ok" or "sick" or "not well". How else could an orphan waiting indefinitely for a kidney reply?

His grin never faltering, the boy replied, "Ndakondwa!"

Arizona wracked her brain for the translation of this phrase. After a moment, she turned to the other doctor in the room and cocked her head in inquisition. The doctor chuckled before saying, "He said that he is happy. That's always his response."

"Happy," Arizona murmured to herself, amazed by the boy's courage. Here she was, a perfectly healthy, successful woman, who had all the luxuries anyone needed in life, but she was not happy. But this boy, this weak, fragile, _dying_ boy had replied that he was happy.

Plastering another sickly sweet, fake smile on her face, Arizona addressed the boy, "Mtima, I'm Dr. Arizona Robbins and I'm taking over your case. We're going to make sure that you get out of here, okay?" She wasn't sure what he knew of his kidney failure and honestly couldn't bear to ruin his good mood.

The other doctor quickly translated and the two had a brief exchange, which included a few smiles and laughs. The doctor turned to Arizona, saying, "He wants to know if he can call you Dr. A – it's easier for him to say. We hardly have any words in Chichewa that start with R."

"Of course!" Arizona smiled and nodded at Mtima genuinely. "I'll be by to check on you tomorrow," she said, before leaving and letting the other doctor translate.

As she left his room, she glanced at her watch and sighed. Only two more hours left of her shift. As strenuous and exhausting as her shifts were, she never wanted them to end. Her only joy came from her patients, so she always dreaded the ends of her shifts. Every day, she would go back to her undecorated apartment, where unpacked boxes lined the walls, check her e-mail, reply to Teddy's and her parents' e-mails, start writing one to her Calliope, realize she didn't know what to say, click the little x, begin to cry, and roll up into a little ball on her bed. Eventually she'd fall asleep only to wake up and begin the ritual all over again. Occasionally she'd remember to eat or even shower.

Arizona continued her rounds, smiling at everyone she passed, trying to make sure that no one ever questioned her dedication or happiness.

**o0o0o**

Arizona sat alone at a table while she ate a sandwich she had packed from home over her lunch break. As she chewed through the dry bread, she laughed ruefully to herself. She hated sandwiches. Before she knew it, saline drops were falling swiftly on to her half-eaten sandwich. Most of the time, she didn't know what caused the tears. Well, she knew what _caused_ the tears, but there was rarely an obvious catalyst. One minute she'd be doing something routine, like eating, and the next she'd be crying. She just _missed_ her, missed everything about her. She missed seeing a flash of raven hair in the hallway, she missed her laugh, she missed stolen moments in on-call rooms, she missed her intoxicating smell and her smile.

Arizona shook herself out of her thoughts and stood up resolutely. She needed to stop thinking these thoughts. She had made a decision, and she was here for three years. She made a commitment, and these children needed her. She needed to just move on. But God, that smile…

She threw her sandwich away and fled the cafeteria. She needed to get a grip. She needed to focus on these patients. Happiness would come eventually. When she burst through Mtima's door, she was flustered, trying to catch her breath. She smiled when she saw the teenager sitting up, reading a book.

"Moni, Mtima," Arizona smiled gently but genuinely at the boy. His eyes lit up and he threw the book to the side of his bed.

"Moni, Dr. A!"

As the teen stared at her with a grin on her face, Arizona realized two things. First, she had no real reason to be in the boy's room. Second, she didn't have a translator. Needing the refuge and Mtima's cheerful company, she sat lightly on the edge of his bed and busied herself by checking his abdomen for any swelling or discomfort, even though she knew what she'd find.

Mtima winced slightly when she touched a particularly sore wound, where they had tried to operate before. "Sorry," she mumbled, before moving her delicate hands elsewhere. Mtima smiled and shook his head, indicating that he was not hurt. As she leaned over to pull the sheets back over his body, he reached out and touched her hair that was falling in waves around her face. Taking a few strands between his fingers, he said simply, "Yellow."

"That's right!" Arizona replied encouragingly. She had been told that one of the reasons the older children loved having the foreign doctors around was to practice their English.

He released her hair and said something in Chichewa. Arizona searched his face looking for any clues to the meaning of his words. All she could see is how earnest he looked. She bit her lip and shook her head. He tried again, this time a little more forcefully, but his full lips curved into a smile at the end. Again she shook her head and ducked her head, feeling almost ashamed that she couldn't understand him. He gently pushed her chin up, so that she was looking at him. He then ran his index finger from his bottom eye lid down to his cheek. She tilted her head and knitted her brow, so he gently took her hand and repeated the motion with her index finger on her cheek. She immediately felt the wetness on her cheek and gasped. She wasn't sure whether it was residual tears from earlier or whether she had actually just been crying. She felt her face flush and she quickly wiped away her tears with her sleeve, internally reminding herself that she was a professional and this was decidedly unprofessional behavior.

She flashed Mtima a small smile and he smiled back at her, his kind eyes shining with understanding. This was one of the best and worst things she had discovered from working in Peds; children and teenagers were entirely too perceptive. She never had any trouble hiding her emotions from her colleagues, but her patients always saw right through her façade. Apparently, it didn't even matter if they both spoke the same language.

At that moment a Malawian doctor entered the room and greeted them both politely. Arizona decided it was time to check on her other patients, so she made her way to the door.

"Dr. A," Mtima called from the bed. She turned and was faced with another one of Mtima's huge smiles. "Dzina langa ndi Mtima. Ndakondwa."

Arizona glanced to the doctor with uncertainty. The doctor laughed and said, "He said that his name is Mtima and that is why he is happy."

Arizona frowned, and the doctor continued the explanation. "Mtima means heart." Still confused, but not wanting to show that, Arizona smiled before turning and heading out the door.

**o0o0o**

Over the next couple weeks, Arizona felt like she was becoming addicted to visiting Mtima. She often found herself bringing extra food every day and eating her lunch in his room. They had been taught not to get attached, not to show too much care for one patient over the others. But in this moment, she didn't care. Mtima's smile, laugh, and general good humor was infectious and she couldn't get enough. Often it was just the two of them with no translator and they communicated through broken Chichewa and English phrases and hand signals. It didn't matter to Arizona that half the time she didn't understand a word the boy said; the way his eyes would light up when he told a story was enough to keep her coming back each day.

She wondered often how his life could get much worse. He was in some ways a young man well beyond his years. He had seen so much pain and suffering in his 17 years, yet he somehow had managed to retain the innocence of his youth. This teenager constantly perplexed, astounded, and inspired Arizona. She may never understand why he was always so happy, but she wanted to learn from him.

Occasionally, Mtima had visitors – friends from schools. His relationship with one particular friend caught Arizona's eye. The young girl always brought a traditional banjo-like instrument and played for him. They would giggle like any normal teenagers in love and act as though Mtima was not in a hospital bed surrounded by IV and catheter tubes and monitors. They always insisted they were just friends, but every time Arizona mentioned her name, Mtima's face would break out into a giant grin.

Mtima was becoming Arizona's refuge and her crutch while in Malawi, but her moments of genuine joy with the boy were hardly enough to begin to cover the ache she felt in her chest. Her mind was playing tricks on her heart, pretending that one day she could be as naively happy as Mtima.

But Mtima wasn't naïve. He could see the pain in the blonde's eyes that was always just tucked away below the cheerful surface. He often tried to pull Arizona out of her fragilely maintained façade, but due to their lack of a common language and her carefully constructed walls, he never succeeded.

On this particular day, Arizona was less careful to keep up her façade of happiness. She had received an e-mail from Teddy that morning; it was a supportive and loving e-mail, but included a diatribe about Callie's state and referred to both of them as idiots a few times. After a risky surgery had ended poorly, she was on the brink of tears when she entered Mtima's room, just needing to hear his laugh.

When she entered, she noticed two other doctors quietly discussing Mtima's condition in the corner. Mtima was a favorite patient of most of the doctors and they were all constantly trying to think of a new treatment that would improve his health much faster than waiting on an often futile list of kidney donations. Arizona brought Mtima his medicine; it was a nurse's job, but they were so understaffed that many of the doctors and surgeons administered pills and IVs themselves.

Mtima took one look at Arizona's face and knew there was a problem. He whispered something in Chichewa and Arizona shook her head. Having finally noticed her presence in the room, the two doctors turned to face Arizona and Mtima. One was the usual Malawian doctor who translated for Arizona. The other was a British surgeon, who was technically Arizona's supervisor. The Malawian doctor quickly asked Mtima to repeat himself.

"He said that your mtima, your heart, is not in your chest anymore."

Arizona narrowed her eyes at Mtima, wondering where he was going with this, and he continued, the doctor translating.

"He says that his mama always told him that she named him 'Mtima' so that he would grow up to be the source of love and joy for anyone he meets. He says that he takes his role very seriously. Because of this, he knows that no matter what has happened to him in his life or no matter what will happen, he has lived his life to the best of his ability. The heart is the most important organ we have and though his kidney may be failing him, his heart never will."

Mtima's speech brought tears to Arizona's eyes, but for the first time she wasn't crying because of a lost love or in self-pity.

"He says that he doesn't know your story, but he knows that you are not living by your heart, but by your mind. Malawi is not your home."

Arizona shook her head at these words, and replied, "Malawi is my home now."

Mtima did not need a translation to know what she had said, and now it was his turn to shake his head. He spoke bravely in broken English the words he had been trying to learn over the past few weeks. "There is English saying. Home is where…your mtima is. Malawi is not your home, Dr. A." 

Arizona's breath caught in her throat. She couldn't believe the intuition of the teenager lying in front of her. Without being able to communicate her story to him in spoken words they would both understand, he had seen to the depths of her soul. Love truly is a universal language.

She blinked back her tears and gave Mtima a warm smile. She knew definitively that he was right, but also knew she couldn't do anything about it. She also knew she needed to get out of his room before she made a scene.

"Thank you, Mtima. I'll see you tomorrow," she said, before turning quickly on her heels and walking out the door. The British doctor followed swiftly after her.

"What's wrong?" he asked, as he caught up to her. She shook her head and kept walking, until she felt his strong hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?" he repeated softly.

Looking up to meet his eyes, Arizona knew she couldn't keep shoving her sadness down.

"I miss her," she breathed.

"Dr. Robbins, if we can replace you, would you like to go home?" her supervisor asked kindly, with no judgment in his voice.

She wanted to say no. She wanted to be here for her patients, for Mtima, to continue the good work she was doing.

She wanted to say no, but instead she heard the word "yes" come tumbling from her lips as if her tongue was working without the help of her brain. She was powerless to stop it.

**o0o0o**

Arizona knocked on Mark's apartment door confidently, having mustered up the courage to find Callie immediately over the long flight home. She had no idea what would greet her on the other side, and even less of an idea of what she would say. She heard Callie's muffled voice on the other side of the door and her heart began beating wildly as her mouth went dry. When Callie opened the door, her heart lurched and she knew Mtima had been right.

Arizona had no idea what her future would hold, whether Callie would ever take her back, whether she would ever be able to call Callie her Calliope again. It didn't matter in that moment, however, because the deafening roar of her heartbeat in her ears was proving to her that her home was wherever Calliope was.

She didn't even hear the words that were spewing out of her mouth and barely recognized that the door was being shut in her face. She was home.


End file.
